Clean Sweep

Back again… And would you believe it, we’ve finished foaling!
 
I don’t quite believe it myself. The season has flown by. Saying that, we do still have a few mares left to cover and get in foal, but a huge weight off our shoulders now the sitting-up team aren’t walking around like zombies.
 
With our final foal arriving at a very respectable hour of 9:30 pm, we ended with the fillies in lead by 4.

​Despite the ground being dry, and some very welcome sunny intervals, I think I’d jumped the gun in my previous blog talking about wearing shorts. It’s still very cold at night! We’ve been reluctant to turn out our oldest paddocks of foals for the dramatic drop in temperatures at night. But checking the forecast for the rest of the week, and keeping our fingers crossed, their first all-nighter might come sooner rather than later.

With lots of the barren and maiden mares signing off on their 42-day scans, the barns are becoming very quiet as we’ve been turning the mares out for their summer holidays - it’s finally starting to feel like summer. However, a big pile of rugs has started to form now we’ve de-rugged all the horses. An overwhelming feeling about how much washing there needs to be done!

​Now the foaling is out of the way, we can turn our attention over to our yearlings, who have spent the winter growing and developing and just being horses. Time to shed some of those winter coats, and seeing what we’ve got to work with, but for now, it’s all a waiting game until Tattersalls and Goffs come to make their inspections before deciding what sale they’ll be going to.

Pictured is a paddock of yearling fillies out at fresh grass.

Star Style as a foal with dam Sweet Cecily

​The build-up now, however, is to Star Style who looks set to run in the 1000 Guineas this Sunday. A very exciting time for us as a small stud having our first Classic contender within our however many years of operation now. Impressive on debut, Star Style made all to win first time out for owner Julie Woods and trainer Richard Hannon. Dam Sweet Cecily was also victorious for this winning combination when she was in training. Sweet by nature, and by name, Sweet Cecily is a lovely individual who is easy to deal with, straightforward and a quality-looking mare. We’ll all be watching Star Style run on Sunday and cheering her home!

The baking situation has been very poor recently. Either we’ve all realised that summer is just around the corner and all we did over the winter was eat cakes and cookies, or we are genuinely very tired –definitely the latter! I know I've promised the team a celebratory Domino’s to mark the end of the foaling season, so I better pull my finger out and organise that.
 
Stay tuned for our '10 to Follow' blog post coming soon, featuring 10 horses to add to your tracker and follow this season on the flat!